Is chocolate a part of the traditional Mediterranean diet?
Posted in: History of Chocolate
Steve:Many of what are thought of as the traditional components of the Mediterranean diet pre-date the 1900s and in fact can be traced back hundreds if not thousands of years.Taking that as the starting point, chocolate can not possibly be a part of the "traditional" Mediterranean diet because cacao did not make it to Europe until the late 1500s and did not spread much beyond Spain and its holdings until the mid-1600s or thereabouts. Other staples of the "traditional" Mediterranean diet are also relative newcomers, lycopene-rich tomatoes for example, are also a New World food and would not have been a part of any European's diet until at least the mid-1500s if not later.It is important to keep in mind that until at least the 1840s (and really more like the 1870s in Europe and the 1890s in the US) chocolate was not readily affordable by the general population as well as the fact that during cacao's early history in Europe, physicians strove to fit cocoa and chocolate into the prevailing medical canon, based on Galen's "humors." Was chocolate hot, cold, wet, or dry? Simultaneously it was hailed as a miracle cure-all as well as to be avoided at all costs. (The True History of Chocolate by Sophie and Michael Coe has quite a bit to say on this subject.) So there was a lot of confusion about whether cacao was healthy or not (remember, tomatoes at one time were considered deadly poisonous).Given all of the above, I would have to say that neither dark nor milk chocolate can be considered to be a part of the "traditional" Mediterranean diet but that dark chocolate (e.g., chocolate without any dairy protein or fats) does - in moderation - deserve a place in the "modern traditional Mediterranean diet." (NOTE: I am not a doctor and this does not constitute medical advice. It's merely my opinion based on meta-analysis reading lots of papers on the subject. Check with your physician first. YMMV.) Coincidentally, there is a very interesting article in today's (January 13, 2009) New York Times Science Section, the Personal Health column by Jane Brody titled New Thinking on How to Protect the Heart . The article confirms the value of the Mediterranean diet with a twist:The traditional Mediterranean diet is NOT low-fat, it's the type of fats that are consumed that are important. Reducing saturated fats (fats that are solid at room temperature) and replacing them with fats from fish, olives, nuts, seeds, and certain vegetables is one of the key beneficial elements of the diet.Technically, cocoa butter is a saturated fat. However, the molecular structure of cocoa butter is such that it is metabolized by the body as if it were unsaturated. Several studies have confirmed that the consumption of cocoa butter does not contribute to elevated serum cholesterol levels.As many may now, cholesterol is not a single number. There is LDL (low-density lipoprotein - bad) and HDL (high-density lipoprotein - good) to consider (not to mention VLDL (very low density-) and IDL (intermediate density-) but I just did) and it is not just the relationship between these but also the ratio between these and blood triglyceride levels. "Good" fats such as olive oil and cocoa butter work to reduce LDL, increase HDL (which transports cholesterol back to the liver for processing), and improves the ratio between these and triglycerides. While I am not an expert in the area, one of the effects appears to be that they also somehow reduce inflammation as well as affect blood's ability to coagulate.CRP (or C-Reactive Protein) is apparently a better indicator of risk than absolute levels of LDL or HDL.
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